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Mozilla Sunbird 0.5 Released

Posted by kdawson on Thu Jun 28, 2007 11:56 AM
from the hot-date dept.
linux pickle writes "Mozilla has released version 0.5 of Sunbird, its calendar app. New features in this release include numerous stability and usage improvements, Google Calendar synchronization support, and much improved printing support. Check out the release notes or grab a copy."
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[+] Developers: Thunderbird in Crisis? 422 comments
Elektroschock writes "The two core developers of Thunderbird have left Mozilla. Scott McGregor made a brief statement: 'I wanted to let the Thunderbird community know that Friday October 12th will be my last day as an employee of the Mozilla Corporation.' Meanwhile, David Bienvenu blogged: 'Just wanted to let everyone know that my last day at The Mozilla Corporation will be Oct. 12. I intend to stay involved with Thunderbird... I've enjoyed working at Mozilla a lot, and I wish Mozilla Co and the new Mail Co all the best.' A few month ago Mozilla management considered abandoning their second product and setting up a special corporation just for the mail client. Scott was more or less supportive. David joined in. While Sunbird just released a new version no appropriate resources were dedicated to the missing component. And while Thunderbird became the most used Linux mail client it has been abandoned by Mozilla for 'popularity reasons'. Both messages from David and Scott do not sound as if the founders will play any role in the Thunderbird Mail Corporation. What happened to Mozilla? Is it a case of pauperization through donations?"
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  • by Slashdot Parent (995749) on Thursday June 28 2007, @12:02PM (#19677825)
    Lightning, which is the Sunbird plugin for the Thunderbird email client, was also released.

    Update as usual: Tools > Add-ons > Find Updates

    Great work, guys!
    • I'm looking for a way to give my Exchange server a toss (because I hate Exchange *and* because I'm stuck with running it on Windows SBS 2003). How close is Thunderbird/Sunbird to the point where I can go to my manager and make the pitch?
      • I'm Sorry (Score:5, Informative)

        by Slashdot Parent (995749) on Thursday June 28 2007, @12:09PM (#19677945)
        I'm sorry to report that Thunderbird/Sunbird is nowhere near ready to replace Exchange. Depending on your needs, it might be a good fit though.

        I'd say download it and try it out. If it's too basic for your needs, and it probably is, then look at some of the open source groupware packages.

        There's some neat open source groupware out there.
        • The big thing my organization needs Exchange for is shared calendaring and event management. I find Exchange's address books hokey, and am going to be setting up an LDAP server to manage that anyways. Basic isn't bad, in my opinion.
          • Take a look at Xandros server which has Scalix groupware and an Active Directory to LDAP migration wizard.It also brags (although I haven't personally tried it yet) that it connects seemlessly to Outlook clients.If you are wanting to replace your Windows server,it would be the way I'd go.Also has Xen built-in and the license allows for unlimited virtual machines on the server.

            Although I've only recently started using their server,so far it seems as rock solid as their business and home desktop OS products

            • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

              I've actually tested Zimbra in my environment.. Currently we use Eudora for Pop3 and Oracle Calendar. The biggest problem I have with much of the "open source" groupware is that it is Browser only. (zimbra has an offline client that is a resource PIG). For my traveling users, they are not always connected to a network. They still need to be able to lookup when/where their next appointment is. I am planning on moving everyone to Thunderbird/IMAP for email, and would absolutely love to use an opensource
                • Interesting.. Off to do some reading... thanks!
                  • Unfortunately, you won't find much to read there.

                    The documentation is horrible and there is literally nothing on that website that explains how the system works, only the feature set. But absolutely NONE of the featureset is explained in detail.

                    Short of setting up your own server with the software and spending a ton of time, you probably will not get any answers on what works with that system. Also, after lots of research, the synCML plugin for lightning is no longer supported because the mozilla calendar a
              • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

                Nope, tried it at mine. Lightning (a must if you are going to be using Thunderbird in the work place) missing decent native shared calendaring support. This is big stopper. But if you have users that do not require it, go for it. I've rolled it out for our laptop users, i.e users not connected to the exchange server..

                Lightning/Sunbird do support shared calendaring. Use either WebDAV or FTP to host it and install it on the client as a remote calendar (whatever it's called). Writing is supported.

                If you want to dump exchange, though, go with Scalix. The Community Edition is free for 25 users, though when you get above that it's not cheap. Still, it does everything Exchange does, runs on Linux, provides an excellent web client, full integration with Outlook via a plug-in, and full integration with Evolution via a plug-

        • Re:I'm Sorry (Score:5, Insightful)

          by DrXym (126579) on Thursday June 28 2007, @01:34PM (#19679081)
          I'm sorry to report that Thunderbird/Sunbird is nowhere near ready to replace Exchange. Depending on your needs, it might be a good fit though.

          They would be far closer to replacing exchange if they supported Exchange. The Evolution Exchange plugin has been open sourced for ages now, porting it the cross platform Thunderbird and Sunbird would make the suite hugely more attractive to enterprises locked into MS Office for their client software.

            • I imagine it would also make it an attractive target for Microsoft patent lawyers.

              I see. So tell me, what open source projects have been the target of Microsoft patent lawsuits to date? And exactly which patents are you talking about? Microsoft doesn't seem to want to disclose this information, so if you have any insight I'm sure we'd be all ears.

        • Given that Exchange is a service on a server and Sunbird is a calendar client, I would say your right. Sunbird will never replace Exchange. But it could replace outlook ;)
      • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

        You should consider SurgeMail. I did away with Exchange for 200+ users using it. To the users it was transparent. They weren't using some of the core functions of Exchange anyway so it was worthless to me. After showing them how things worked, give or take a month and a half of "teach the idjit/PEBKAC (l)users", all was well and it offered the same level of functionality of Exchange. Only a couple thousand dollars cheaper.
      • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

        What you probably need for an Exchange replacement is something that supports CalDAV. iCal in Leopard will, and it's on the Sunbird roadmap, but I don't think it's in this release. Novell's Hula also supports CalDAV, and might be an option.
      • Im thinking of replacing the toilet in my bathroom, how close is BMW to making a 325 that can fill that need? Exchange is a messaging and collaboration server, Thuderbird and Sunbird are user applications.
      • ...because it couldn't when I last used it in March.

        Seriously, I tried to organize my SXSW schedule using Sunbird.
        1. I added all playings of all movies at SXSW Film that I wanted to see into the SXSW online calendar.
        2. Then, I sync'd Sunbird to the online calendar.
        3. So that I could make local edits, I exported/reimported the calendar data as a local calendar.
        4. I looked at conflicts, etc., and determined which movies I could see on first showing versus catching reruns.
        5. When I had it about half done, I sa
  • by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 28 2007, @12:02PM (#19677831)
    Is a combined / integrated application that incorporated Firefox, Thunderbird and this Sunbird... that each part could be run separately if you wished.

    It could save on the download because each part would share the UI code, networking code, etc, given that they're all built upon a custom platform layer, and each download replicates that.

    Ah well, I'm sure it will never happen.
  • by also-rr (980579) on Thursday June 28 2007, @12:04PM (#19677859) Homepage
    If you are dedicated it's possible to pull your appointments from an exchange server, covert to iCal, and then import them into Sunbird.

    I still prefer KOrganiser, not least because it has an exchange plug in [kde.org]. Integration with the mail client is also better in my opinion.

    In fact Kontact is overall a fantastic piece of software. My only gripe is the fact that it's handling of IMAP mailboxes is horrific, but I believe that is slated for a total revamp in KDE4.
    • If you are dedicated it's possible to pull your appointments from an exchange server, covert to iCal, and then import them into Sunbird.

      How do you pull your appointments from an exchange server?
    • by MajorBlunder (114448) on Thursday June 28 2007, @01:00PM (#19678675)
      If you are dedicated it's possible to pull your appointments from an exchange server, covert to iCal, and then import them into Sunbird.

      Yes, but in order to be that dedicated you would first have to be committed... To a to a highly secure facility for the chronically insane

    • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

      Re-posting under my login vs my first AC post:
      With this latest announcement of Google Calendar Sync ability this opens up the option of getting my Outlook at work to sync up with my Sunbird at home on my Mac OS X desktop via a couple of hops.

      1. Outlook PC at work to ScheduleWorld.com using a Funambol client to extract from Outlook.
      2. ScheduleWorld.com to Google Calendar via ScheduleWorld's Google sync ability. You can make step #2 automatic by enabling this in the preferences of your ScheduleWorld (fr
  • by imag0 (605684) on Thursday June 28 2007, @12:17PM (#19678071) Homepage
    I would *love* to use it- but without Exchange calendaring support, it will be effectively a non starter for me and for thousands of other geeks out there who would love to use Thunderbird as their primary mail client at work.
    • by bill_mcgonigle (4333) * on Thursday June 28 2007, @01:09PM (#19678795) Homepage Journal
      Please use your influence as a Microsoft customer to get them to add CalDAV support to Exchange, in the spirit of cooperation and interoperability. Does anybody know if the Commonwealth of Massachusetts is looking to standards for their calendering systems as well?
      • by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 28 2007, @01:01PM (#19678679)
        Screw Exchange. Exchange support is the last thing in the world that the Sunbird team should be working on. The whole point of this project should be to get people to *stop* using Exchange.

        Then you better bring to the table the features that Exchange has that folks want. There is no good central calendar sharing server software in the OSS world that can do what Exchange can and integrates everything together with email. It simply doesn't exist, so folks won't migrate for that reason.

        A good first step in moving would be to integrate your client so that it can use exchange until an OSS exchange server replacement is made. That's what the grandparent wanted, and it's a very reasonable request.

        The vast masses aren't going to migrate away from MS based on principle. They want things that work. You aren't going to break the hegemony until you provide them with something that works as well. Sunbird isn't there yet. Not by a long shot.
        • Sunbird doesn't need to work with Exchange. What we need is a Exchange server replacement that will work with Outlook and Sunbird.
          It is easier to migrate a single server than a thousand clients.
          Once you have a server that that supports Sunbird "and Sunbird+Thunderbird can do everything Outlook can" it will be easy to migrate people off of Outlook.
      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        Screw Exchange.

        Then Sunbird is doomed to a small niche.

        Apparently you've missed the last 10 "revolutions".

  • I already wedged it trying to install it on my Mac. I guess it doesn't like important my huge iCal database, the program is totally frozen.
    • It just took over 5 minutes to import my iCal database. no big deal, seems to work pretty nicely. So far I like it better than iCal.
  • by amper (33785) * on Thursday June 28 2007, @12:49PM (#19678497) Homepage Journal
    This should be the number one priority for the Sunbird team, if it's not already working (anyone have info on this?). Apple will have iCal 2 out with Mac OS X v10.5 in October, and the iCal Server with Mac OS X Server v10.5. Darwin Calendar Server is available for testing [calendarserver.org] on Mac OS X v10.4, and should also run on any UNIX-like system.
  • I've been using Sunbird for a while now as my sole calendaring app for my tech. consulting business. It's been great, given a bug here and there (but who doesn't encounter bugs in OL/Exchange?). I've also installed it as a Webdav shared calendar for one of my clients, and they love it too. Never had a problem with it, save the timezone issue a while back (but who didn't have issues with that?)

    Now the events in Sunbird 0.5 are shadowed, looks much nicer. Thanks guys!!

    Oh, and if anyone wants to make an openso
    • Bidirectional Pocket Pc Sync.

      I'd switch in an instant if it had support.
    • If you're serious about getting Palm sync to work, send me an email. I'm looking for people to support a project to do exactly that.

      Cheers,

      Morel
  • I do love this programme, it ties together all the nonsense that I have / am forced to use so that I know what I'm doing...

    * my own iBook, running iCal

    * iPod sync'ed off of iCal

    * Novell Groupwise at work, on both company Dell laptop and desktop

    * Windows Mobile 2003 PIM thing as my work mobile phone

    And what runs on everything? The open source stuff, running on many platforms and generating files to import for everything. No agenda as to 'doesn't import / export files for other platforms'. Cracking interfa
  • I was the first one to download Sunbird 0.0.1alpha and try it out, and even use its integration with iCal resources. But it was crashy, and the features it had were flaky. I'm sure they've improved matters since then.

    But I'm not gonna use it now, because I've found Google Calendar. SMS support alone is worth the switch. It also has contacts integration so I can invite people to meetings from my contact list, and it has an upsell story: You can run Google Apps for Domains and get the PIM/Groupware featur
  • by DTemp (1086779) on Thursday June 28 2007, @03:12PM (#19680595)
    Syncing with google calendar is the most profound new feature to me. Having a calendar stored on one computer is no good to someone who moves between several computers. This is the same reason I use IMAP email, store my sent emails on the IMAP server so I can read even them from whereever I am, and why I DONT use gmail: because it doesnt support IMAP.

    Off topic: anyone hear any rumors about gmail supporting IMAP?
    • Umm, I don't know who modded the parent troll, but let's be honest, when the story's went for nearly five minutes with nothing but this post, he might actually be right. Just sayin'.
        • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

          Hahaha thanks. I probably was a little harsh, but it just struck me that this probably is unnecessary. *shrug*
          Considering it was at .3 for about 2 years, learning that they finally got to a new version is actually surprising news.
      • Re: (Score:2, Funny)

        by Anonymous Coward
        Dear Utopian,

        I'm a bit busy right now. Cheney asked me to come back home for a nooner, and thought I would love to discuss this proposition, I cannot sit down right now.
        Perhaps some other time?

        Love,
        *S